President Obama's hope for legislation that would lead to a "moonshot" fight to cure cancer has been imperiled by partisan divisions.
Republicans are reluctant to support any long-term spending commitments, while Democrats say that the bill will be for naught if Congress doesn't appropriate some serious money in the long-term for research.
Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Massachusetts, for instance, has proposed Congress commit an additional $5 billion a year to the National Institutes for Health.
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Some Republican leaders are open to setting "mandatory spending" levels on certain research initiatives. Sen. Lamar Alexander, R-Tennessee., who chairs the Senate Committee on Health and Human Services, has indicated that he wants to find an agreement with the Obama administration and Senate Democrats on areas that both parties believe deserve funding.
But others within the party are staunchly opposed to such mandates, especially if the bill doesn't include a way to offset the increase in spending with cuts elsewhere.
The cancer moonshot includes a series of research initiatives aimed at finding an all-encompassing cure for the disease. Vice President Joe Biden, who lost his son Beau last year to brain cancer, has been the face of the campaign.
The research the Obama administration has highlighted as offering the most promise involves the harnessing of big data to identify what genetic factors may lead to cancer. The hope is that better understanding the human genome will allow doctors to more quickly identify cancer in people, as well as how to better treat it.
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